


33° Fahrenheit

by orphan_account



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Diego Hargreeves-centric, Drowning, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I dont know how to tag, Kidfic, No Incest, Whump, also i have no idea how ao3 works so im praying the formatting looks okay, i dont write creatively that often n i think it shows, its a water tank fic baybeeeee, kind of, no beta we die like my fathers love for me, sorry was that too much, wait i forgot - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27127183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He watched as the water tank's lid lifted up, pure fury swarming his head and constricting his lungs. He shut his eyes tight as Hargreeves pushed him into the tank and sealed the lid.Or,The obligatory water tank fic.
Kudos: 18





	33° Fahrenheit

"Number Two, join me in my office." Hargreeves' voice commanded. Oh, and of course he couldn't be _bothered_ to use Diego's actual name, the one that Mom had spent ages picking out, Sir Reginald Hargreeves was too good for that.

Diego shook his head, as if waving off the scoff building in his throat, and followed Hargreeves. But, they weren't heading towards his office. The realization dawned on him, and with it accompanied the utter fear, the kind that put a vignette on your vision and held a part of you— the part your subconscious wanted to keep alive— far, far away from the world.

They were going for special training.

He could still feel the callouses on his finger tips from throwing and throwing and throwing until he bled, and the poor rabbits who had no idea what was coming to them. The image of the entrails leaving spots of blood on the floor when Pogo and Mom picked them up stuck in his mind. And oh, God, their beady eyes staring into his with something akin to _trust_ \- it broke his heart every time, even if he would never admit it. ( _Weakness. You're being weak, Number Two._ A voice echoed in his head, and he couldn't tell if it was his own, or Hargreeves', or Luthers'. They all blurred together at that point.)

As he jumped back to the present, Diego noticed something was off. He wasn't at the usual spot. Instead, he was in a barren room with only a water tank and its piping, along with a staircase to the combined entrance and exit.

"I wish to test how far your trajectory manipulation can go. If my hypothesis is correct, you don't simply control the trajectory of objects in mid-air, you can also manipulate the trajectory of atoms or chemicals." Hargreeves explained.

Diego looked to Pogo for a simplification, because that entire spiel went way over his head.

Pogo licked his lips. "Your father," he paused, looking down, "is going to test if you need to breathe. You will be in a controlled, safe environment, but..." He trailed off.

"Is that understood, Number Two?" Hargreeves questioned, impatient and irritated. "Y-Ye-Yes, sss-ir." Two (because that was who he was right now, just Hargreeves' experiment. _Diego_ wouldn't stand for this) nodded.

He watched as the water tank's lid lifted up, pure fury swarming his head and constricting his lungs. He shut his eyes tight as Hargreeves pushed him into the tank and sealed the lid.

Everything was so dark, and so, so cold. Two began hyperventilating instinctively, causing him to inhale water through his mouth and nose. God, it burned, it burned so much, (inwardly, he wanted to laugh at the irony of water burning) and the burning sensation just made him cough and that made it burn more.

It felt as if his throat had been rubbed raw, all of the skin torn out with dry claws. Despite this, his brain slowly started to fizzle into calmness, or at least shoved out the panic enough for him to work with everything.

He swam around to look for the lid of the tank. When he finally got his hands on it, he began banging desperately. He knew no one was coming to help him, but if he could just pop off the lid somehow—

Nothing. It wasn't working. Two wanted to scream, cry, something, anything. All he could feel was the sinking despair as he let go.  
And, as much as it hurt to admit, Hargreeves was right. Two really didn't have to breathe.

Time seemed a far away thing there, with no clocks to speak of and his emotions clouding his thoughts. At a certain point, it brought with it some kind of calm, similar to the eye of a hurricane.

Had he been a different person, Two might've found some sort of fun in the whole experience, or figured out how to escape. But alas, he was neither of those people, so he just let his rage fester, almost to the point of it giving him nausea.

(This was how he coped.  
He couldn't deal with his own emotions, so he tucked them away and cloaked them in anger.  
He was a coward.)

Seconds, or hours, or days, or eternities passed before light hits his eyes again. A part of him felt indebted to whomever had freed him, before he caught a glimpse of a monocle and a seemingly permanent scowl.

The rage inside him boiled with a new intensity.

Two climbed out of the tank on shivering legs and shook himself like a dog. He was freezing; in the water, he'd gotten used to it, but the air hitting his body and soaking clothes made the cold a thousand times worse.

"H-H-How," his stutter mixed with the chattering of his teeth made it increasingly hard to spit out the question, "H-H-How m-mm-much-ch w-wi-will we ha-ave to t-t-t-test th-this?"

"This is not a test, Number Two, it's training. No more questions." Hargreeves deigned to answer.

Even at 13, Diego wasn't stupid. He knew what that meant.

_It's not gonna end 'til I get out of here._

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: 860 words of projection  
> ....quite honestly, this is much shorter than i wanted, and the pacings a little wonky, but eh. as i said, 860 words of projection. hope u all enjoyed, or suffered!


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